@mastersthesis {1293546, title = {A Coherence of Incoherences: Graeco-Arabic Philosophy and the Fifteenth-Century Ottoman Synthesis of Philosophy with Sharia}, year = {2019}, type = {PhD dissertation}, abstract = {

The fifteenth-century Ottoman world was a dynamic seedbed of philosophical and theological debates and was particularly marked by numerous adjudications produced by certain celebrated scholars who synthesized different domains of knowledge{\textemdash}whether it was speculative theology, philosophy or Sufism. This dissertation focuses on two important adjudications written on the renowned twelfth-century theologian Abu Ḥamid al-Ghaz{\={a}}li{\textquoteright}s (d. 505/1111) Tah{\={a}}fut al-fal{\={a}}sifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers), which arbitrates between Arabic philosophy and theology.

Sultan Meḥemmed II ordered two prominent Ottoman scholars of his time, Ḫocaz{\={a}}de Muṣliḥ al-Din (d. 893/1488) and cAl{\={a}}{\textquoteright} al-Din al-Ṭusi (d. 887/1482), to prepare an adjudication on al-Ghaz{\={a}}li{\textquoteright}s arguments. Sources indicate that the Sultan ultimately favored Ḫocaz{\={a}}de{\textquoteright}s text. This study focuses on Ḫocaz{\={a}}de{\textquoteright}s and al-Ṭusi{\textquoteright}s responses to the discussion of secondary causation and occasionalism in al-Ghaz{\={a}}li{\textquoteright}s Discussion Seventeen on how existent things interact with each other and come into being in nature in concomitance with God{\textquoteright}s all-encompassing power. Ḫocaz{\={a}}de particularly defended certain aspects of Graeco-Arabic philosophy (i.e. the Aristotelian-Avicennan philosophical tradition), whereas al-Ṭusi favored the more orthodox Ashcarite approach, in which he denied the agency and the causal contribution of any being other than God. This examination argues that Ḫocaz{\={a}}de{\textquoteright}s response to this discussion indicates why he was included among the seven select scholars who synthesized philosophy with Sharica according to the seventeenth-century encyclopedist and savant K{\={a}}tib {\c C}elebi (d. 1068/1657). Ḫocaz{\={a}}de{\textquoteright}s and al-Ṭusi{\textquoteright}s divergent approaches to the issues of secondary causation and occasionalism typify other formulations in the fifteenth-century Ottoman world that combined different aspects of Graeco-Arabic philosophy, speculative theology, and Sunni creed, constituting a synthesis.

This study assays the works of Ḫocaz{\={a}}de and al-Ṭusi in physics, metaphysics and speculative theology with regard to the common medrese handbooks studied during the fifteenth-century, as well as their responses to al-Ghaz{\={a}}li{\textquoteright}s aforementioned work{\textemdash}in comparative perspective with a third approach espoused by {\c S}emseddin Aḥmed bin Mus{\={a}}, also known as Ḫay{\={a}}li (d. 875/1470?). This study traces the formulations of Ḫocaz{\={a}}de, al-Ṭusi, and Ḫay{\={a}}li in common medrese handbooks of the time by documenting how their approaches were motivated by post-classical scholars such as Athir al-Din al-Abhari (d. 663/1255?), Naṣir al-Din Ṭusi (d. 672/1274) and al-Sayyid al-Sharif al-Jurj{\={a}}ni (d. 816/1413). This research highlights a new group of scholars emerging in the second half of the fifteenth century, hailed as {\textquotedblleft}verifiers{\textquotedblright} (al-muḥaqqiqun), who were able to synthesize various philosophical and theological formulations from differing textual traditions. Ḫocaz{\={a}}de epitomized this new scholar type, developing a coherent argument by incorporating elements from Graeco-Arabic philosophy and speculative theology.

}, url = {http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:42013152}, author = {Efe Balikcioglu} }